<p>From SWH member Valerie Persau:</p><br />
<p>From I might surprise you with my take on the following. <a href="http://www.nj.com/monmouth/index.ssf/2012/09/autistic_nj_kindergartner_denied_school_lunch.html" title="no Lunch For Little Boy">An autistic boy was denied lunch on Tuesday</a>, due to a delinquent lunch bill by the students parents. This is a straightforward story, the school has promised that something like this will never happen again. I believe them, but what really bothers me is how the story was reported, and the amount of outrage because a boy did not eat for 6 hours. Some quotes from the article that gave me some pause:</p> <br />
<p><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.649999618530273px; ">"forcing him to go hungry the entire school day and sparking outrage with his parents,</span><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.649999618530273px; "> </span><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.649999618530273px; ">"</span> </p> <br />
<p>"<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.649999618530273px; ">The boy’s father said he would have done anything to avoid his son going hungry."</span></p> <br />
<p><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.649999618530273px; ">"The pair also said they felt their son’s starvation should not have come down to the $2 the lunch goes for."</span> </p> <br />
<p>Yes, the school handled this badly, especially the server who denied a little boy his meal. That person needs to think a little more with his or her heart. Still, what bothers me is that there are children in this country who really do starve. They get no breakfast, they go to bed without dinner. Denying this boy a meal did not lead him to the brink of starvation. It makes a mockery of what real starvation and poverty is. The story is short of details, it is possible that the boy and his parents are poor and this was his only meal of the day. If that was the case they should say so, otherwise this is just another case of the media over-dramatizing an anecdotal incident. </p>
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